I Finally Found You (And I Promise I'll Never Let Go)
by x-backtoblack-x
Summary: "Yea, life will definitely screw you over, but love is what's there to comfort us when it does, not the cause behind it." "You really think that?" "I didn't until I met you."


_I finally found, I finally found you  
You never have to worry if what I say is true  
Girl I've been looking for you  
And when I saw you I knew  
That I finally found, I finally found you_

"You never told me your dad died when you were a kid?" Beca murmured, her head resting on her girlfriends chest as they watched bad daytime TV in Chloe's apartment.

"You never asked." Chloe responded simply, Beca feeling the slight shrug of her girlfriend's shoulders. "Who told you anyway?" She added after a moment.

"Aubrey… She told me the reason you went home last weekend was for his anniversary. She was actually pretty shocked I didn't know." Beca explained; trying not to sound like she was hurt by her girlfriend's secret.

"Oh… Well yea." Was Chloe's only reply, Beca again feeling the soft shrugging of the older woman's shoulders before the subject was changed. "You know, my advice to people like that would be to get their tubes tied." She commented, pointing at the screen where two women were tearing verbal chunks out of one another over a man who probably no longer had any of his own teeth.

"When I told you about growing up without my dad you said you couldn't even begin to imagine how that must have felt." Beca commented quietly, straining now to keep her voice even.

"I… I didn't feel the need to tell you about my dad dying. Jesus can we not just drop this Beca." Chloe snapped suddenly, seeing red as her girlfriend began to attack her.

"There's no need to get so defensive." Beca told her, suddenly unsure if confronting her had been the right thing to do or not.

"There's no need to be so nosey." Chloe fired back automatically, catching Beca off guard with her sudden hostility.

"Look Chlo' I get it if it's a touchy subject for you and I'm not going to push you on it but I'm your girlfriend, you could at least be civil about it." Beca snapped; untangling herself suddenly from the mess of her and Chloe's limbs and standing in front of her girlfriend, watching as Chloe sat up in the seat.

"I don't get what the big deal is; I don't want to talk to you about it." Chloe informed her indignantly.

"That's exactly what the big deal is." Beca told her, slumping her shoulders in defeat. "I mean I know nothing about your life. We've been going out for seven months and I still feel like we're perfect strangers sometimes. You tell me nothing about you, yet you have this way of making me feel like you're an open book, and you have a way of making it seem like this whole sham is an even relationship but it's not. We come to things like this and I realize you've never opened up to me and I just… I just can't understand what it is, or why it happens and I want to know… I need to know."

Chloe stayed silent for the longest time after that. Beca was sure she could hear the seconds crawl past around them as the tension in the room mounted and she awaited her girlfriends response.

"You're not going to give me a reason, are you…? You're not going to open up now just like you've never opened up before." She presumed, the laugh that followed her words seeming bitter and strained as her face contorted into a look of pained amusement.

"Maybe you should leave." Chloe said then, the words being empty and heavy, feeling like a bullet tearing right through Beca's chest.

"No Chloe. I'm staying here until you talk to me." Beca denied her, holding her ground rather than fall back as she normally would in this situation.

"I don't mean leave my apartment Beca." Chloe whispered, never quite making direct eye contact. "I mean just leave… get out of my life, because you're right, I can't give you a reason, and if that's what you want from me then you should probably leave."

Beca stayed silent, and after a while Chloe's resolve crumbed and she looked up to make eye contact with the younger woman. There was no defeat in her eyes, no look of pain or loss. Instead there was a steely front of sorts, a look of determination written across her features where Chloe had expected to see suffering.

"Please…" Chloe whispered breathily, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. "I can't let myself fall Beca… please." She begged.

"No one ever said anything about you falling Chloe." Beca whispered, retaking her seat beside her girlfriend and placing a hand over Chloe's knee.

"I mean in love… I can't let myself fall in love." Chloe admitted feebly. "And that's so hard to do around you because you keep giving me reason to love you, but I just can't."

"I'm never… I'm never going to hurt you." Beca replied, shocked that the older woman would think that of her. "I would never in a million years hurt you." She emphasised.

"Please don't say that. Don't say that as if it's such a definite solid thing, because it's not." Chloe sighed. "It's not. People get hurt… we'll get hurt."

"You don't get to say that when you don't know the truth." Beca argued back.

"Well then what is the truth? If it's not that life and love just screws you over in the end then what is it?"

"The truth is…" Beca paused, never having really been one for eloquent speech. "The truth is you're everything I've ever desired in my life Chloe. I mean I used to think the exact same way you did, that life was just one big joke and all we had to do was survive it, and that love and all that other crap was just an obstacle that slowed some people down and weakened them. Then I met you. Then I became friends with you. Then I finally figured out what love actually is in life. It's the goal. It's what people should strive to achieve. It's not a level along the way, or a bad guy that needs to be defeated, it's the prize. It may not always seem like the prize, but it is. It gives life its purpose, it gives life it's silver lining, and you'll never realize that unless you open yourself up to embracing it, because yea, life will definitely screw you over, but love is what's there to comfort us when it does, not the cause behind it."

"You really think that?" Chloe murmured after a moment, the older woman having let the words settle in the room before choosing to speak.

"I didn't until I met you." Beca replied. "And yea, that sounds really lame, but until I met you I'd never had anyone I could say that I loved unconditionally. I love it when you make me coffee in the morning before class, I love it when you pretend to be shocked that I made you another mix, I love it when you make that little content squeaking noise right after you orgasm, even though it really embarrasses you… I even love it when we're playing board games and you get super competitive and you get really obnoxious when you win." She admitted.

"You are lame." Chloe agreed with a soft snort of laughter in spite of how she felt right now. "Dammit see, there you go, making me laugh and smile, even when I feel like absolute shit and all I want to do is cry. You're the only person that knows how to do that… it's infuriating." She huffed then.

"Is that what you're so afraid of… that I can make you happy?" Beca wondered aloud.

"It's stupid, I know." Chloe admitted readily. "You just have to understand, I promised myself I'd never feel that way about anyone because I'd end up hurt, and now I do and I can't afford to."

"There's only so many ways I can tell you that I'll never hurt you Chloe." Beca sighed. "I just don't get it though…? What made you like this?"

Beca was sure her question wouldn't be answered. Sure it'd fall upon deaf ears or that Chloe would merely tense up again. In fact she was about to change topic just to avoid that happening when she saw something in her girlfriends eyes flicker, and she realized that maybe, just maybe, she was finally going to break down some of them walls.

"My dad…my dad was a solider. One of the first deployed to Iraq in two thousand and three… He never came home." Chloe surmised briefly, her head falling limp onto Beca's shoulder as the younger woman wrapped her arms protectively around Chloe's waist.

"I'm so sorry." Beca whispered, knowing her words would never be enough.

"I was just after turning eleven when we got the news. I've never… I've never seen anyone just crumble the way my mom did. She literally just collapsed as if her legs suddenly couldn't hold her up anymore." Chloe's words were barely a whisper now, Beca having to strain to hear. "She was never the same after that. Like she smiled again, and she laughed again, and she even dated again… but I'll always remember when I was fourteen I heard my older sister ask her why none of the guys she dated ever went any further than one date and she was silent for so long, probably debating whether or not she should tell a sixteen year old girl the truth, but she did eventually."

"Her heart too broken to love again?" Beca filled in when Chloe failed to continue, presuming it was too difficult for her girlfriend to say aloud.

"No. You'd think that'd be it. That's what I was expecting her to say too actually, but no." Chloe told her. "She said that when they met, dad had always promised to be there for her through thick and thin. He'd promised to love her until the day she died. He promised to take care of her and me and my siblings. He promised to follow her wherever she went without question. He told her all these wonderful things and then… and then he just went and died, and how could she love anyone else when all love turned out to be was promises that just couldn't be kept."

"That's really sad." Beca told her earnestly. "Doesn't mean it's always true though." She added moments later.

"You'd think that… but it does in the end." Chloe sighed. "You say now that you'll never hurt me, you _promise _to never hurt me, yet in two years you're going to jet off to LA to be a DJ and even if I follow you out there you'll be at club openings all the time and surrounded by all these beautiful people and you'll forget me or something… and I'd stop you, but it's your dream, so I can't."

"It's not my dream." Beca informed her.

"Yes it is. Don't you dare say that it's not just because it's what you know I want to hear… that'll just make me even angrier." Chloe scolded, not giving Beca a chance to finish.

"I'm not going to say it's not my dream, because it never _really _was." Beca informed her. "My dream was to be happy… because when you grow up the way I did, with constant screaming matches and seeing which of my parents could hurt the other one the most you just want happiness. You don't want all the crap they give you to try and outdo the other… you just want to be happy, and for so long I was convinced music was the only way for me to be happy, and it still does, it still makes me happy every time I hear a song or make a mix… but you make me happier. I don't know when, but you've overtaken my music in that sense." She admitted.

"Don't… please." Chloe whispered, still pressed firm against Beca's side.

"No, Chloe I will." Beca stopped her. "I don't need LA anymore, and sure someday maybe we'll go there, but only if you decide to, because I will follow you anywhere Chloe Beale. Come hell or high water I will follow you because like it or not, and believe it or not, I've found the love of my life and I'm never going to lose you and I'm never going to break a promise to you if I can help it… I'm so helplessly in love with you and I'm never going to let you go."

"How do I know though…?" Chloe questioned softly.

"Because…" Beca murmured, slipping their hands together at their side. "We were made for one another. A ginger and a hobbit; both outcasts from society. We were just meant to be." She teased lightly.

"Thank god we'll never be able to reproduce naturally." Chloe agreed, letting herself be overcome by a wave of genuine laugher in a way she only ever felt when she was around Beca. "I love you." She whispered once she'd calmed down enough to speak.

"I love you too… even if we would have ugly kids." Beca murmured in return, kissing her girlfriend on the forehead softly. "And I'm going to remind you of that every day for as long as we live."

_In this crazy world of choices I've only got a few  
Either you're coming with me, or I'm coming with you  
Cause I finally found, I finally found you._


End file.
